1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus provided with a maintenance mechanism for cleaning a recording head.
2. Description of the Related Art
Serial inkjet recording apparatuses and linear inkjet recording apparatus have been proposed both of which eject ink from a recording head onto a recording medium which is being conveyed. In a serial inkjet recording apparatus, recording of each line is performed while carriage on which a recording head is mounted reciprocates in a main scanning direction which intersects with the conveyance direction in which the recording medium is conveyed. In a linear inkjet recording apparatus, a recording head with an elongated printing width collectively performs recording of each line. These inkjet recording apparatuses require a maintenance mechanism for removing ink and dust particles adhering near a nozzle of the recording head.
Such a maintenance mechanism is typically provided with a sheet-shaped wiper blade made of, for example, rubber. The wiper blade is moved, while in contact with the nozzle, to scrape the ink and dust particles off. The wiper blade is bent when it is in contact with the nozzle; and then, after passing over the nozzle, the wiper blade returns to its original shape in a single motion. At this time, it is concerned that the ink adhering to the wiper blade scatters toward the recording medium and contaminates the same. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-30508 discloses an inkjet recording apparatus with reduced amount of scattering of ink during the wiping operation of the ink adhering to a recording head.
The inkjet recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-30508 is a linear inkjet recording apparatus and is provided with a maintenance mechanism situated between the recording head and the recording medium. This maintenance mechanism is provided with a plurality of scatter prevention walls situated near each of a plurality of recording heads arranged along the width direction of the recording medium. The scatter prevention walls absorb the ink scattering during the wiping operation of wiper blades (elastic blades) so as to minimize the scattering amount of ink. In recent serial inkjet recording apparatuses, it has been proposed that a plurality of recording heads are arranged out of alignment with one another in the conveyance direction (sub-scanning direction) in which the recording medium is conveyed, in order to increase a printing width for each printing event to thereby achieve high speed recording. If the scatter prevention walls disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-30508 are provided in the thus-structured inkjet recording apparatus, the recording heads (carriage) come in contact with the scatter prevention walls during a reciprocation movement in the main scanning direction, which interferes the recording operation. This is because the scattering prevention walls extends to a position higher than nozzle surfaces (i.e., bottom surfaces) of the recording heads and each of the scattering prevention walls is situated close to each of the recording heads in the main scanning direction. This means that the maintenance mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-30508 is not applicable to the serial inkjet recording apparatus provided with a plurality of recording heads. It is therefore concerned that the recording medium is contaminated by the scattered ink during the wiping operation of the ink adhering to the recording heads.